I want to remind everyone that Connecting GTA will be available for use on August 20 for clinicians at UHN. You can find more information about this innovation here, including a list of the organizations which have gone live. For our clinicians, this means that you will be able to look at the electronic health records of your patients when the records are in other institutions in the GTA. As more and more organizations are added, this will be invaluable to ensuring that there is continuity of care for any patient who has received care on multiple sites in the GTA. It also has the potential to reduce duplicate tests, something which will be very much appreciated by our patients and will reduce medically unnecessary testing.
Connecting GTA has been largely developed for eHealth Ontario by a team from UHN, led by
Lydia Lee, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer and
Shiran Isaacksz, Senior Director – Regional and Provincial Portfolio at SIMS. We expect that the Ministry and the government will be talking about this in the fall when more organizations are signed on. I want to remind everyone that with the increased ability to see electronic records comes the absolute duty to ensure that we are respecting our patients' rights to privacy. You may only look at the records of those people you are caring for and only when there is a direct need for the care of the patient. And,
Robin Gould-Soil, our Director of Privacy and Access Information Management reminded me that users should not access their own records through Connecting GTA. With increased access comes increased responsibility to understand privacy and the circle of care and a gentle reminder that everyone at UHN must complete the on-line Privacy training module every year.
My thanks to everyone for your participation in the Pan Am and Parapan Games – either as a volunteer or as part of the UHN Pan Am/Parapan Games Planning Committee co-chaired by
Marnie Weber and
Frank Tourneur. From the people who ran with the torch, to the volunteers who volunteered to translate and drive, to the clinicians who worked throughout the Games to keep the athletes healthy and ready for competition – the city's hospitals and clinicians rallied to help put on a very successful event. Great cities like Toronto are the result of engaged citizens!
Peter
